Tag Archives: Italy

A chapel in Naples, a Japanese boutique and an American road trip – just some of the catalysts for the clothing seen on the catwalk for Spring/Summer 2016 in New York, London, Milan and Paris, and currently filtering into the shops (as the industry works a season ahead, the current New York Fashion Week is showing Autumn/Winter 2016-2017, in case you’re wondering).

I’ve combed through the Ready To Wear collections and teased out the main places designers are championing this season. They’ll inform what we all wear – whether you buy your clothes from high-end boutiques or the high street – and where we travel.

The Royal Academy’s latest exhibition, Wanderlust, is like being given an intravenous drip feed of retro travel photos, postcards and scrapbook materials. It’s like swallowing hundreds of ‘vacation’ Pinterest boards in one go. For anyone with an incurable sense of escapism, this is a drug, and it’s delivered by a little-known bachelor from Queens, New York, who never went abroad.

A self-taught American artist, Joseph Cornell created mixed media collages using anything from Baedeker’s travel guides to old maps, tickets, compasses, adverts and newspaper clippings, calling his collections ‘explorations’.

Imagine a world where the Mona Lisa is placed next to Stalin and Oscar Wilde jostles for space alongside Pope John XXIII. Nearby, poor old Christopher Columbus is lumped beneath Adolf Hitler. This weird state of affairs is the norm inside Rome’s Museo delle Cere, or Wax Museum.

My sister, who’s been to both Madame Tussaud’s and the lesser known (but much more laughable) Louis Tussaud’s, knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into when she suggested we step inside and hand over €9 each. However, I wasn’t quite so prepared for the comedy value ahead.

“It’s Luigi! The actual Luigi!” I hissed at my family as we waited for our coffees to be prepared at Rome’s famous Bar del Cappuccino (50 Via Arenula). Luigi Santoro, an award-winning über-barista, is the much-discussed man behind the place’s success, drawing a steady stream of both nonchalant locals and excited visitors six days a week. Clippings stating his claim to fame lined the right-hand wall as we walked in to queue for our drinks. There he was in print form, captured in the pages of newspapers from Japan and Italy, with his thick moustache and a face gripped in concentration.

One of the greatest bugbears of modern travelling, for me at least, is the sight of an ignorant tourist whipping out their iPad to document a world-famous landmark. The combination of stupidity and arrogance is enough to make my blood boil, as they ditch the prospect of using a camera or, God forbid, their eyes, to record memories.

Such is my loathing, I figured it was time to take a closer look at why this is so offensive and what you should be doing instead, to look a bit less obvious if nothing else. I’ve taken two prominent locations as examples – in each one I’ve spotted people freely using this gadget to a worrying degree…

A London City Airport survey has found that the average Brit has only visited seven countries, and only 31% have made it to 10 or more of them, despite there being an incredible 193 countries in the entire world that could be explored. This data, which I was reading about in Wanderlust Magazine, really got me thinking about my own travelling past, as it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really started accumulating a respectable country count.

Rather than tally up where I’ve been, I’m going to admit why I haven’t been to as many places as you. It’s time to come to terms with my travel inadequacy and look back on those few countries with fond memories.

I’m pleased to announce the very first competition here on the blog, and it’s a really cool concept to get involved with. Nightswapping is a modern and über-convenient way to see the world, allowing you to stay in other people’s houses and be placed right in the heart of the city you want to explore. That’s why I’ve teamed up with Cosmopolit Home to offer one lucky winner the chance to bag seven nights’ free accommodation in the destination of their choice from the company’s website.

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter had me at the multi-layered imagery on the outside – I was hooked before I’d even turned over to the blurb, let alone before I’d began to make my way through the novel itself. Just like the cover, the plot was composed of layers, and it also flipped backwards and forwards in time and around the world. What sounds chaotic and clunky actually is, in actuality, a story that becomes almost impossible to put down and perfectly evokes Italy in 1962.

Roman Holiday; La Dolce Vita; To Rome with Love. Notice a pattern? Rome has been the backdrop to plenty of international films since the 1950s, but it often becomes the accidental star of the show and continues to lure tourists who can’t wait to recreate the scenes for themselves.

You only have to head to the Trevi Fountain or the Bocca Della Verita and wait for the crowds of devotees to form (and don’t deny that you want to join in with them), looking to channel Anita Ekberg and Audrey Hepburn. 19th July saw the re-release of Roman Holiday at cinemas across the UK, making this the perfect time to indulge in a tour of the streets that made their way onto the screen.

Give me a great bit of street art and I’m a happy bunny. I know that Rome doesn’t have the same kind of gritty urban reputation as New York or London, but it’s actually a great place to find some unexpected gems on a wall or in a shop window, in between checking out ancient ruins (which I’m glad haven’t been covered in spray paint, but have more subtle additions).

Here are some of the best examples that I could find during my visit, from bizarre animals to a religious art interpretation.

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Hello & Welcome

I'm Polly, a British travel blogger with my eye on all things cultural and unusual, from museums to markets. I've experienced a metal gig in Reykjavik, seen a bone chapel in Kutna Hora and been to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe nine times. Next up: who knows?